Lance McGee rushed 44 times for 356 yards and six touchdowns Saturday, tying a state championship scoring record. In overtime, he plunged into the end zone to secure Sumner’s second consecutive 4A state title with an unforgettable 41-35 win over top-seeded Lake Stevens.
It was A) the biggest and best game of Lance McGee’s life and B) possibly his last game as a running back.
But how can A and B both be true?
“It’s baffling for me that (college) teams don’t see him as a running back,” Sumner coach Keith Ross told The Times this week. “I think it’s safe to say he’s a linebacker because they know he can do that.”
In three seasons at A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, McGee played both positions before transferring to Sumner last summer. As a junior at Davis in 2024, he tallied 115 tackles and six sacks on defense, and he added 868 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns. College programs projected him primarily as a linebacker — with Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Memphis, Nevada and others extending offers.
He transferred to Sumner to continue playing with 7-on-7 teammates, while increasing his competition level and college exposure.
“Watching his (junior) highlight video, you could see he’s got some juice in him,” Ross said. “But when he got here, he was coming off an injury from basketball. So his knee was a little banged up, and he was 238 pounds. Now he’s 206. So to be honest with you, at first he wasn’t able to show us what he could do.”
Once he shed the weight, McGee showed everyone what he could do.
Just not at the position most projected.
“He could’ve been our best linebacker,” Ross confirmed. “But we have two all-state, Division I-offer linebackers here already. To fit the needs of our team I was like, ‘Hey Lance, what do you think about rushing for 2,000 yards, and then going to play linebacker (in college)?’ ”
It turns out, 2,000 yards was a modest estimate. After focusing primarily on offense, McGee amassed 2,454 rushing yards, 9.9 yards per carry and 43 total touchdowns in 14 games. That included 292 yards and three touchdowns against West Linn, 226 yards and three touchdowns against Emerald Ridge and 187 yards and five more scores against Curtis. McGee’s body transformation skyrocketed his explosiveness, balance and ability to change direction.
The statistics were astounding … and still deceptive.
“I’ve never seen somebody dominate at this level of football like he has this year,” Ross said. “He didn’t even play in the second half of seven games. He was out at halftime in seven games, because we’re not trying to run up the score or pad his stats. He’s a 3,500-yard rusher if we wanted him to be.”
But what do college coaches want him to be? What do they see?
And did a selfless decision yield unintended side effects?
“A couple schools stopped talking to me after I didn’t play any linebacker,” McGee told The Times on Tuesday. “I had a couple coaches start following me and texting me, ‘How are you doing?’ I stopped playing linebacker, and they didn’t hit my line anymore. It was, for sure, motivation.”
In the state playoffs, a motivated McGee made history. He pulverized Puyallup in a 42-35 semifinal win, toting 38 times for 313 yards and five touchdowns. Last Saturday, he improbably upped the ante — adding 44 carries, 356 yards and six scores at Husky Stadium. In the two wins, he accounted for 11 of the Spartans’ 12 touchdowns.
Though, for McGee the last one will linger.
“Everybody sees the game as, ‘Oh, Lance had however many yards, six touchdowns,’ ” McGee said, highlighting his teammates’ help. “But they don’t see that (wide receiver Braylon Pope) was getting double-teamed, so that took two guys out of the run game for me. I have the best O-line in the state, so they open up holes and I’m not getting touched until 5 yards down the field.
“After I scored the last touchdown, seeing all my teammates running on the field and the crowd going crazy, it was such a surreal moment. I haven’t seen anything like that. It was crazy. It felt like I was in a dream. I’ll never forget that moment.”
For Ross, whose 11-3 Spartans went back to back, the feeling must be mutual.
“He reminds me of (former Sumner and Stanford running back) Connor Wedington,” Ross said. “He moves like Connor, but he’s 35 pounds heavier, which is just incredible to me. His change of direction and balance are amazing. His yards after contact are absolutely incredible. He’s a big, thick back, and he runs low and behind his pads and can make you miss in the hole and outrun you.
“I’m in awe standing on the sideline. It’s almost like you can’t tackle him. These are really good teams we’re playing, and he’s rushing for 300-plus yards like he’s going against an eighth-grade team. It’s just incredible, what he can do.”
So, then: What will McGee do next?
Last week, McGee signed with Oregon State and was listed as an inside linebacker. But while discussions are ongoing with new coach JaMarcus Shephard, McGee said it’s possible he could carry the ball with the Beavers.
When it comes to college football’s blue bloods, McGee fell through the cracks of a rushed recruiting calendar. By the time he ascended as a senior running back, it was too late for many programs to pivot.
“I think he was a victim of a couple things: geography, an injury he had his sophomore year, the body (weight gain),” said 247Sports national recruiting editor Brandon Huffman, whose service ranked McGee as a three-star recruit and the No. 11 prospect in Washington. “But also, the senior evaluation has gone the way of the dinosaur now. So that perfect storm kept him off a lot of radars, when he shouldn’t have been.”
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It kept him off a lot of radars.
Not all of them.
“Interestingly enough, Iowa had him on their board,” Huffman added. “If they had lost their running back commit, Iowa was going to pivot to him and offer him as a running back.”
Instead, McGee will be a Beavers linebacker … or tailback. It’s too soon to tell.
But if Saturday was a finale, he provided fireworks.
“It was probably the biggest relief of my life,” McGee said of Sumner’s state title win. “With all that work we all put in through the summer, and all the adversity we fought through after being 2-3, everybody thought we were done. Everybody counted us out, but we came back. We persevered, got through it. What can they say now? We’re state champs.
“Seeing all my brothers run out on the field, seeing the whole town behind us going crazy, it was the best feeling in the world. It was the best thing I could ask for.”
Not bad for a former (and future?) linebacker.
Mike Vorel: [email protected]. Mike Vorel is a sports columnist at The Seattle Times.
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